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The Deserters

By Mathias Enard
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Brief Description
Fleeing a nameless war, an unknown soldier emerges from deep within the Mediterranean scrubland, dirty and exhausted. A chance meeting forces him to rethink his journey, and the price he puts on a life. On 11 September 2001, aboard a small cruise ship on the River... Read More
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The latest novel by 2015 Prix Goncourt-winner Mathias Enard, The Deserters lays bare the devastations of war on the most intimate aspects of our lives.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Fleeing a nameless war, an unknown soldier emerges from deep within the Mediterranean scrubland, dirty and exhausted. A chance meeting forces him to rethink his journey, and the price he puts on a life.

On 11 September 2001, aboard a small cruise ship on the River Havel near Berlin, a conference of scientists pays homage to the late East German mathematician Paul Heudeber, a Buchenwald survivor and steadfast antifascist who remained loyal to his side of the Berlin Wall despite the collapse of the Communist utopia, unaware that a new era of violence is about to descend.

Out of the tension between these narratives, everything that is at stake in times of conflict – in love as in politics – comes to light: commitment and betrayal, loyalty and lucidity, hope and survival.

Superbly translated by Charlotte Mandell, this latest work from Mathias Enard vividly lays bare the devastations of war on the most intimate aspects of our lives.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781804271636

Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 May 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Contributors:

  • Translated by Charlotte Mandell
  • Translated by Charlotte Mandell

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 125.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 224

Collections

Best Sellers at Book Hero Fiction General Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Literary Fiction Mathias Enard New Release Fiction New Zealand's Best Selling Books The International Booker Prize 2026

About the Author

Mathias Enard, born in 1972, studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He won several awards for Zone, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre, and won the Choix Goncourt de l'Orient, the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée and the Prix du Roman-News for Street of Thieves. For Compass, he won the 2015 Prix Goncourt, the 2017 Leipziger Book Award for European Understanding, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori and was shortlisted for the 2017 International Booker Prize. The Deserters is his sixth novel to appear with Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Charlotte Mandell has translated over fifty books of fiction, poetry and philosophy from French, including works by Marcel Proust, Maurice Blanchot, Abdelwahab Meddeb and Jean-Luc Nancy. Her translation of Compass by Mathias Énard was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and was the recipient of the 2018 ALTA National Translation Award in Prose. She was recently named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government and has received the Thornton Wilder Translation Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.


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